Lawyer prohibited to meet Ershad

Lawyer prohibited to meet Ershad

DHAKA (Reuter): Bangladesh's Home (Interior) Ministry has refused to allow one of former President Hossain Mohammad Ershad's lawyers to see him in jail.

Ershad, deposed in a popular opposition-led revolt in December 1990, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for corruption and keeping unlicensed firearms. He also faces charges of killing a rebel army general 14 years ago.

Canadian lawyer Marcel Danis said yesterday the ministry had turned down his request to see Ershad on the grounds that the Bar Council restricted foreign lawyers from practicing in Bangladeshi court.

He said that restriction should not apply to him merely visiting his client in jail, however.

Danis, who came to Bangladesh at the request of a senior leader of Ershad's Jatiya Party, said he had already applied to the Bar Council for permission to see and defend the ex-president on the charges he still faces and has denied -- killing Maj. Gen. Abul Manzur following a 1981 mutiny.

Manzur was leader of 1981 mutiny in which former president Ziaur Rahman, husband of current Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, was killed in Chittagong.